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Human Trafficking, There and Here

By Nicholas Kristof May 1, 2010 11:54 amMay 1, 2010 11:54 am

On Friday I was on a panel at Bay Path College along with Somaly Mam, my friend and hero. Somaly is a Cambodian who was trafficked into a brothel as a little girl but managed to escape — and then started an anti-trafficking organization to fight the brothels and help other girls escape. She has been extraordinarily courageous in keeping up the fight when the brothel-owners just want to kill her, and she seems so unbelievably poised when she speaks in English — her fourth language — before large audiences under a spotlight. But on Friday, I saw a reminder of how that past haunts her and anyone who went through such a trauma.

To get to the stage, we took a freight elevator, and it was vaguely like a dark cage. That terrified Somaly, because it reminded her of the cages in which she had been punished and tortured when she was in the brothel. Many of the Cambodian brothels have underground rooms in which they beat and terrorize girls who are considered insufficiently cooperative. Just entering that elevator was enough to bring back those hideous memories of torture for Somaly, and it left her shaken and rattled.

To me, that was a sobering reminder of just how traumatic those experiences are and how long-lasting the mental impact. Westerners who see the brothels in Cambodia or Malaysia or India or Pakistan see girls smiling and gesturing, and rarely appreciate the brutality that makes those operations work. To learn more about Somaly’s heroic work, check out her website.

But we shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking that terrible abuses happen only on the other side of the world. Americans sometimes are willing to accept that girls are enslaved in Delhi, but can’t imagine that it happens in New York. In truth, the abuses tend to be worse in Asia, but they certainly happen in America as well. My take is that the worst exploitation and mistreatment is often directed not at foreign women trafficked into the U.S. but rather at American teenage girls who flee abusive homes, end up at the bus station — and then the only person there to “help” is a pimp.

The Houston Chronicle has an article looking at a 13-year-old girl who was arrested for the crime of prostitution, while her pimp apparently wasn’t even investigated. The article, by Dottie Lester, writes:

Pending before the Texas Supreme Court is In the Matter of B.W., a case in which a 13-year-old child was found to have engaged in delinquent conduct for agreeing to have sex for money. She was found to be in need of rehabilitation and placed on probation for 18 months in the custody of juvenile probation officials.

At the time B.W. was arrested by a Houston police officer, she was living with a “boyfriend” more than twice her age. According to briefs filed with the state Supreme Court, he was never investigated. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act states that any minor involved in commercial sex is a victim of trafficking and anyone prostituting a minor under 14 years of age can face a federal life sentence. To date, only B.W. has faced prosecution in this case. How is this possible?

Alas, that happens far too often. There is a bizarre misperception that pimps are business partners of prostitutes, even though the pimps beat the girls, sometimes brand them with tattoos, and take every penny they earn. Yes, they sometimes manipulate the girls emotionally and pretend to be their boyfriends, but in no way is it a partnership. And the way to end this kind of exploitation is to arrest the pimps and throw them in prison, not to go after the girls as criminals. There’s also some evidence that going after johns will help.

So there we have it. Two reminders of human trafficking both far away and at home, and of the toll of modern slavery in the 21st century.

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About Nicholas Kristof

This blog expands on Nicholas Kristof’s twice-weekly columns, sharing thoughts that shape the writing but don’t always make it into the 800-word text. It’s also the place where readers make their voices heard.